A Career Prosecutor Heads
Major Probe of Auctioneers

A career prosecutor from Brooklyn is for the moment the most powerful person in the elegant, high-stakes art world.

John J. Greene, 54, isn't a connoisseur of fine art. "I can't afford to buy art," he says. He is the head of a sweeping investigation by the Justice Department into possible price-fixing by art dealers and Christie's International and Sotheby's Holdings Inc., the august auction houses that together control 97%...